Monday, February 05, 2007

The Big Lie, a True Story* by Isabella Leitner


This is a POWERFUL book. In this children's book Isabella shares her experiences as a Jew in Hungary during WW2. The text is easy enough for my 3rd grader to fly through, while giving her plenty of food for thought. I decided to read this one to both Arielle and Nolan and was glad I did. Isabella has written two books for adults about her experiences, Fragments of Isabella and Saving the Fragments. I plan to look those up this afternoon.

Isabella's father went to America in 1939 to try to arrange passage for his family to follow. The war broke out and Hungary was an ally of Germany. The Nazis entered their little town, Kisvarda, and rounded up the Jews. At Auschwitz her mother and youngest sister were killed. She was separated from her brother and she and her three sisters struggle to survive. This is one of the BEST books written about this time period that we've happened upon for young readers. It is NOT sugar-coated, but she does write with hope for the future. I was disappointed when I couldn't find the TOG book I was looking for but that disappointment led to us discovering this gem at our local library.

1 comment:

Kristine said...

Thanks for the book rec, again. Although we're not studying this time period, we briefly covered it this past summer. Holly read the Corrie TenBoom book and a few others, and we visited a Holocaust photo essay display at the library today. We recently got another book you reviewed (the Japanese man who forged paperwork?), and I've requested this one too.